


speak of tomorrow, before yesterday ends

by Elisye



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: "g'raha is a shard of hythlodaeus" hc IS IN FULL FORCE HERE, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Character Study, Gen, POV G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, POV Second Person, Stream of Consciousness, also i dont need to tag 5.0 spoilers do i, like stated pairings can be platonic or romantic Up To U
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21859924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisye/pseuds/Elisye
Summary: A memorial in process / The dead and their memories laid to rest / You are the coffin(you remember.oh,you remember all right.)
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch & Warrior of Light, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch & Hythlodaeus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	speak of tomorrow, before yesterday ends

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this at like 3am and didnt really edit it either so if it reads weird or has major discrepancies with canon then thats why ww
> 
> also: persephone is the 14th, while melpomene is an amauortine oc and (eventually, ultimately) a neutral party in the hydaelyn-zodiark fiasco. uh sorta. depends on when i get her backstory hammered out but yeah shes. A (Super Self-Indulgent) Friend. :)

and the adrenaline fades.

cascading darkness and fathomless light, clashing in a vision made for myths before and after. as the cosmos roars around you, as the world strains to make real this moment - your senses too strain, strain, ichor draining thin through flesh turned stone, and you register and remember nothing—

_“Ah, but what would I do if I were?” A voice, yours, yours, not yours; Amaurot is rising amid the night -_

_Hades snorts behind his mask. “Become more responsible, perhaps.”_

_You laugh, laughing into a night that will end, bringing morning; this is the final hour, you realize, you realize far later and far too late, the final hour where all is well and all manner of things shall be well - oh, so you thought, so you thought -_

(you register an ache. it is profound, suffused with a memory that is yours and not yours and muddled like a stone dropped under murky waters - you register it, as well as you can, and remember nothing, remembering, remembering, remembering—)

a violent sound. heaven torn apart. the devil’s advocate screams - not aloud, but among the numerous cracking, scattering masks, the looming grief, a scream -

your senses strain. how are you still on your feet? who knows. you must though. you must - for all that you have done, for all that must be done, for two worlds and a lone figure standing against their opponent.

the air under the sea is hard to breathe. you keep at it. distantly, you watch emet-selch take his encore in acceptance. you register and remember nothing. his voice is far too somber, far too humble to be a reminder. emet-selch was all business at work, no matter what you did, what not-you tried; the man standing there, death finally coaxing away that lamentable thrall, is nothing like emet-selch.

nothing like hades either.

_—your fingers press idle against the edge of the roof. The smooth grooves of an ivy pattern become temporary memories in the skin of your fingertips. It would seem a tad much, a tad grandiose in comparison to Amaurot’s simple elegance, but this theatre hall was commissioned by **the** Melpomene of Atlantis; that woman loathed restraint where it wasn’t wholly necessary. _

_“In all seriousness though.” You hum, watching the line of theatergoers below. “What would would I ever do with the position? Of course, putting aside the city’s maintenance and the construction of new facilities - that is basic for the role, perhaps I shouldn’t even mention it—”  
_

_“Knowing you, one of your fanciful ideas would likely suffice as an appropriate use of our public resources, if only by accident.”_

_“Oh, so you finally agree that my giant ice palace has merit?”  
_

_“I did not say that.” The Architect lightly smacks you on the back, near your shoulder. It throws another laugh out of you, a small one, unexpected yet predictable. “Even a toddler can tell that has no good use.”  
_

_“But Melpomene said…”  
_

_“First of all, that woman wanting polar bears for her stageplays is her own concern. Second of all, the role of the Architect and the duties bestowed therein does not entail building personal zoos for an acquaintance, period.”  
_

_In response, you faintly remember an impromptu acting session you had with the aforementioned Muse. Drawing on that, you give your best attempt at a theatrical-looking pout. If only you could create a mirror to check - “But you at least agree that it would be an interesting sight to behold, yes, Hades?”_

_The man just rolls his shoulders and sighs. If it weren’t for the mask, perhaps, you would likely be on the receiving end of a rather exasperated look._

_He doesn’t say ‘no’, though._

“…remember,” hades says, quiet in the not-dark of the sea floor. “remember that we once lived.”

that he ached, that he bled, that he toiled - that he killed and destroyed and rampaged, seething with no amount of forgiveness - that he died with the rest of the world once before in another fight between light and dark, one that did make it into the myths as you now know it, muddled but true. 

remember, he says. remember, you think. not you. remember, not-you thinks. you don’t remember, because you never lived it, those experiences were never truly yours to begin with - but here they are, here they persist, more than half of an immortal lifetime that met a mortal end. 

emet-selch glances your way. eight times rejoined compared to the others, seven times rejoined. you remember, you remember. 

not even a god’s blinding veil can obscure the color of a soul.

_The last of the theatergoers finish their wait in line. They present their tickets and are kindly escorted into the theatre. For a rough estimate, it would likely be another fifteen minutes or so before everyone is settled in, and the final preparations for tonight’s showing to be completed. Considering that, neither of you are in any hurry._

_Both of you have reserved seats in the upstairs galleria regardless. You got yours by being Melpomene’s friend - and Hades from Persephone, courtesy of the latter being a close relative of said friend. The play might even be delayed until the two of you, such honored guests, take your seats; you might just have all the time in the world._

_So you stare into the distance, and take in the sights.  
_

_The night is far too deep to be ending any time soon. Windows blink their lights like a constellation, and the never-ending murmur of a city keeps floating into the air. There is a passing thought, alien in its content, in its unbidden rise past the socialized chains suppressing discord - it is easy to think nothing will end. Not this peace, not this contentment, not this moment._

_But it will, soon, far after, far after the end, before your death, with your death, after your death - when Melpomene scrapes through dirt and concrete and finds your corpse, when Persephone hears her anguished wails and finds her, when Hades rushes after and stops and looks and remembers, remembers, the final hour, and over millennia shall forget it and remember anew—_

eyes closing. in hindsight, this is such a peaceful end. one that resulted from a vicious, ugly battle, but the very end arrives with peace. how did you die again? do you remember?

your senses strain, your nerves fraying, an electric ache that turns all white from numbness. you didn’t die like this. did you? or was it instantaneous? was it not a merciful death, a quick death?

you wonder. a part of you, hidden somewhere in your sundered soul - that not-you wonders, quietly. knows with no evidence at all, without a doubt, that anyone who survived must have thought along those lines. you, you, did as well. when the tower opened, when you opened your eyes to the world, when the lingering staleness of a calamity washed over you and biggs the third handed over a storybook, a rewritten record, it’s a false account but we can’t create hope if we don’t have any—

and neither would you, their last hope, would have hope otherwise. how could you, when the facts soon became clear - knowing that they met an early end was devastating as was. but knowing that the warrior of light suffered, suffered so cruelly, suffered from a torturous asphyxiation and all hope of a future—their own future—strangled to death with them. so long as the cause of death is clear to the very last detail, so will the death itself. and nothing about their death garners any hope of a peaceful end.

instead, your warrior died, slowly. painfully.

you swallow, memories and ichor and pain, feet unsteady.

do you remember? do you remember that future-past that was and never-was? and do you remember? living and dying?

(can you honor this wish? his wish? another wish—)

_The curtains will be drawn soon. Hades has already gotten to his feet, patting his robes for imaginary dust. You continue to believe in eternity and stay where you are, legs swaying into the air. Absently, your eyes fall onto a strange spot to the south - the darkened silhouette of a skyscraper feels too distant from its nearest architectural neighbor, like a hole in a shirt._

_You tilt your head at that empty space, thinking. Another skyscraper there would be nice… or, if you could be fanciful as you like, maybe a tower? A tower reaching the heavens—_

_“Oh!” An idea alights in your mind. Hades pauses and looks at you with a frown. You are nowhere near deterred as you turn to him - “Do you remember those glass tumblers Persephone gifted me a few decades ago?”  
_

_“The stained glass ones?”  
_

_“Yes, yes, those.” You are no Architect, never will be - but something about the image in your head simply burns to exist, to be created - “But rather than tumblers - imagine if there were a building like that. A building of glass! Or—no, not glass, too fragile, so perhaps - oh, I know! Crystal! A building made out of crystal!”  
_

_“Hythlodaeus.”  
_

_“Just imagine it, Hades. Something that magnificent - but, ah, if it were to be more according to your taste, perhaps we can have it serve an array of respectable functions. An apartment complex, office space for a bureau, a broadcast tower, a windmill if tall enough…”  
_

_Hades opens his mouth, most certainly to retort on your latest tangent, but then shuts his mouth in what is instead a thin line of contemplation. You do a double-take when his expression remains that way for a solid minute - is he actually considering it?_

_You blink behind your mask. The man folds his arms. “Hypothetically now,” he starts, slow, “were this building to be made of the right type of crystal, it could be used for thermal absorption….”_

_“…I take it that my idea has successfully passed a preliminary review?”_

_“Until you draft a proper proposal in actual writing and submit it to me in person, nothing is under consideration and contestation now.”_

_You offer a rueful smile to that, and decide the theatre has waited long enough. Joining your friend down the stairs and to the private galleria, the image of a crystal tower lingers, lingers, burns into your mind and into Hades’ memories, forgotten and remembered and forgotten and remembered, into Allag, into red eyes, into prayers and hope and a promise, so many promises, made for the future, for the present._

for this very moment.

you lived. you died. and you lived and died and lived and died and you lived, for this very moment.

you take a deep breath. broken ribs protest. but you breathe. you breathe, sea-air and night-air and dawn, breaking soft over a miniature cosmos colored from memory. you take a step. slow, shaky. you take another a step. another, one after another, because what else is there to do?

you were not meant to last this long. this far. hope for hope. a different future for a future lost. eight parts of a dead immortal whisper, whisper - the end should have been that. you agree, distantly. you agree, you do, and the image of a city surrounded in violet foliage arises all the same. nothing lasts. but you did not build your crystarium for it to collapse.

nothing lasts. hythlodaeus did not last. but some things, however fragmented, scamper past annihilation and here you are. here you are. here you are. here you both are.

your warrior smiles. a new morning greets you. here you are.

that is enough, isn’t it?

as with every wish and prayer and hope and promise, broken and lost and brought your way - you cradle them, remembering. eight parts, not belonging to you, drift through your mind and soon resettle somewhere quieter; there can be no better grave than the coffin of your own soul.

now, though. now, it’s your turn, g’raha tia.

where will you go now? what shall you do? what shall become of you?

oh, only the future knows. and who better to forge it than you - the heart of a rewritten future?

have hope, once more. tomorrow upon today upon yesterday. and let build the path forward -

you smile through the tears, leftover. “…’tis good to be awake!”


End file.
